1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a light emitting device that emits light by using electroluminescence and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
As a light emission source that is a thin type and is light-weighted, an OLED (organic light emitting diode), that is, an organic EL (electro luminescent) element is provided. The organic EL element has a structure in which an organic thin film of at least one layer formed of an organic material is interposed between a pixel electrode and an opposing electrode. When a current flows between both the electrodes, a current simultaneously flows through the organic thin film, and thereby, the organic thin film or the organic EL element emits light.
When a plurality of the organic EL elements is aligned and emission or non-emission of each of the organic EL elements is appropriately controlled, an image or the like having desired meaning and content can be displayed.
As the above-described organic EL element or an image display apparatus having the organic EL element, for example, an apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2001-185354 has been known.
Generally, the above-described image display apparatus is required to have a definition as high as possible. However, in order to satisfy this requirement, there is a problem that it is difficult to manufacture the image display apparatus. High definition may include an increase in the arrangement density of the organic EL elements. However, in such a case, elements such as the pixel electrode and the opposing electrode described above are needed to be miniaturized to some degree. In particular, when the above-described organic thin film is formed of a polymer material, the organic thin film may be manufactured by using a liquid droplet coating method (ink jet method). In such a case, the difficulty in manufacture is increased further. The reason is that the liquid droplets or ink that is a raw material should be coated within a very fine space with a precise position adjustment.
In JP-A-2001-185354 described above, technology for configuring an EL layer formed by using an ink jet method to be continuous over a plurality of pixel electrodes (claim 1 of JP-A-2001-185354), and more particularly, technology for forming the EL layer in the shape of “a stripe” or “an oval or a rectangle” has been disclosed (see Abstract, FIG. 1, or the like of JP-A-2001-185354). Accordingly, in the technology disclosed in JP-A-2001-185354, the EL layer can be formed by having an ink head to continuously scan, and thereby a processing time can be shortened (paragraph No. [0010] of JP-A-2001-185354). As a result, according to the technology disclosed in JP-A-2001-185354, the difficulty in manufacture can be relieved in that point of view.
However, there is also a problem in the technology disclosed in JP-A-2001-185354. For example, the above-described EL layer formed over the plurality of pixel electrodes necessarily includes a plurality of pixels therein. However, in JP-A-2001-185354, the EL layer is one continuous layer, and accordingly, there is possibility that each pixel has some influence on other pixels. For example, in the extreme case, when one pixel located in the EL layer emits light, a pixel located next thereto may emit light.